Hello-

My name is Che, I'm an artist and activist in Los Angeles. I've been on the periphery of the anti-globalism movement for several years, and I'm currently facing a challenge that I haven't really had to confront yet--presenting an explanation to a family member about why our movement exists. More specifically, why are people protesting at the G-8 summit in Georgia.

The importance, in this case is that the person wanting to know more is my brother in law, a member of the Army National Reserves, near Atlanta. While luckily he is not going to Iraq like much of his fellow reservists, he is being deployed to guard the G8 summit.

He and his family don't know anything about the summit, or why people might be protesting, and yet they are open-minded enough to ask me for information.

Can anyone give me some resources, advice, examples, etc. that could help me give a rational, compelling explanation of our cause?

Thanks,

-Che

is he is the National Guard or the Army reserves?

One in on call from the governor (NG) the other is on call from the POTUS (AR).

If he's in the AR, this is a violation of the Posse Comitatus act to allow

federal military to enforce civilian law. Noithing new here but I thought I'd let you know.

I guess you could start with the idea that almost all government is about maintaining property, money, business, and work. Then after that, they added social services in the 1930s, because of massive union unrest in America and numerous revolutions by small countries around the world.

For a long time, manufacturing and trade were dominated by America. Then, Germany and Japan gave America some competition. The G8, WTO, IMF, WB, WIPO, FTAA, CAFTA, (and I guess NATO, ASEAN, EU, etc.) and the rest of the alphabet soup are attempting to globalize government. The problem is, these organizations aren't democratic or transparent. Since the 1970s, with the WTO leading, they've become more influenced by the needs of transnational corporations.

These globalizers argue that they are helping the poor people of the world by modernizing them. To some extent, it's true -- they are modernizing them. The price they pay, however, is they get to experience what people in America experienced a hundred years ago, when America was modernizing. The union organizers are being shot, prisoners and children work in factories, people die from work, and farmers are put out of business and migrate to cities to work in factories.

They would argue that this is "natural", (I've read this argument), but it's not. Internally, the US has long maintained an impoverished class, and externally, the globalizers can do the same. They can keep the poor countries poor, for their own use as labor or for raw materials.

This article is about a report by the International Labor Organization. These are the arguments for the people who are protesting. It's the moderate side of the protests. The more militant aspects of the protest criticize capitalism in general.

The people INSIDE the meetings would consider these ILO positions to be progressive and threatening to business.

------------------clip from the article below------------

"WASHINGTON -- A decade of rapid globalization has lifted more than 200 million people out of poverty -- almost all of them in China and India -- but the gap between rich and poor countries has grown wider, a report by the International Labour Organization says.

"While it is clearly a cause for celebration that world poverty in the aggregate has been reduced, this is little consolation to those outside the few countries where these gains have been concentrated," according to the 168-page report, due to be released today.

"China alone accounted for 157 million of those who have risen out of poverty since 1990.

"Meanwhile, poverty -- defined as those living on less than $1 (U.S.) a day -- has grown in much of the rest of the world, including in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

"The imbalances are also apparent within nearly all countries, where the wage spread between rich and poor has grown.

"The report, drafted by a 26-member ILO-appointed international commission, concluded that "deep-seated and persistent imbalances in the current workings of the global economy" remain, which are "ethically unacceptable and politically unsustainable."

"Seen through the eyes of the vast majority of men and women, globalization has not met their simple and legitimate aspirations for decent jobs and a better future for their children," the report said."